ELEMENTARY ITALIAN I
Same course as ITAL V1101-V1102.
- MWR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
- TR 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
- TR 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- None None-None
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Instructor:
Alessandra Saggin
CULPA: 4
Info
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Instructor:
Patrizia Palumbo
CULPA: 15
Info
- 4 points
INTENSIVE ELEMENTARY ITALIAN
An intensive course that covers two semesters of elementary Italian in one, and prepares students to move into Intermediate Italian. Students will develop their Italian communicative competence through listening, (interactive) speaking, reading and (interactive) writing. The Italian language will be used for real-world purposes and in meaningful contexts to promote intercultural understanding. This course is especially recommended for students who already know another Romance language. May be used toward fulfillment of the language requirement.
- TRF 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
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Instructor:
Barbara Spinelli
CULPA: 9
Info
- 6 points
INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN I
Prerequisites: ITAL V1102 or W1102, or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. A review of grammar, intensive reading, composition, and practice in conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural material. Lab: hours to be arranged.
- MWR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
- MWR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
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Instructor:
Felice Beneduce
CULPA: 7
Info
- 4 points
INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN II
Prerequisites: ITAL V1201 or W1201, or the equivalent. If you did not take Elementary Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. A review of grammar, intensive reading, composition, and practice in conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural material. Lab: hours to be arranged. ITAL V1202 fulfils the basic foreign language requirement and prepares students for advanced study in Italian language and literature.
- TR 10:10 a.m.-noon
- TR 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
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Instructor:
Federica Franze
CULPA: 4
Info
- 4 points
INTENSIVE INTERMEDIATE ITALIAN
Prerequisites: ITAL UN1102 or the equivalent, with a grade of B+ or higher. An intensive course that covers two semesters of intermediate Italian in one, and prepares students for advanced language and literature study. Grammar, reading, writing, and conversation. Exploration of literary and cultural materials. This course may be used to fulfill the language requirement.
- MTR 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Maria Luisa Gozzi
CULPA: 14
Info
- 6 points
Nationalism in Theory and History
Nationalism Theory & Hist
Were nations always there? Are they real or imagined? Do they come before or after nationalism and the state? How did we pass from a world of empires, duchies, and city-states to a world of nation-states? Where does legitimacy reside if not in God and his endowed kings? Is the modern world really ‘disenchanted’? How did we come to understand time, space, language, religion, gender, race, and even our very selves in the era of nations? Are we done with this era, living already in postnational times?
This course will combine older theories of nationalism (Gellner, Anderson, Hobsbawm, Smith) with recent approaches of the phenomenon after the ‘Imperial/Global/Transnational Turn’ and late studies in Gender, Race, Culture and Nationalism, in order to offer new answers to old questions. We will talk about many places around the world, but the main stage where we will try out our questions is Italy and the Mediterranean.
- W 10:10 a.m.-noon
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Instructor:
Konstantia Zanou
Info - 3 points
ADVANCED ITALIAN I
Prerequisites: ITALUN2102 or the equivalent. If you did not take Intermediate Italian at Columbia in the semester preceding the current one, you must take the placement test, offered by the Italian Department at the beginning of each semester. Written and oral self-expression in compositions and oral reports on a variety of topics; grammar review. Required for majors and concentrators.
- MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
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Instructor:
Alessandra Saggin
CULPA: 4
Info
- 3 points
Business Italian and the Made in Italy E
Everywhere in the world, the expression ‘
Made in Italy’
evokes the idea of quality, elegance and unique taste. From food to wine, from artisanal craftmanship to fashion, from the automobile industry to the design, ‘
Made in Italy’
means creativity, durability, and a guarantee of excellence. Today, Italy is the fourth largest economic power in Europe and many countries like the USA have long established economic relationships and partnership with it. While the English language has been increasingly used during these economic exchanges, a basic knowledge of Italian terminology within a context of commerce and trade is an important asset and a useful resource. Developing a strong understanding of the Italian business environment and its culture offers useful advantages for all those who want to create ties with or plan to work in the Italian business world in the future.
The course is open to all students who have completed the Italian intermediate level and would like to have an introduction to Italian language used for work and business. The course will be conducted as an intensive practice in the spoken and written language through assigned topics focusing on Italian business and related cultural themes. It will provide an overview of the job market world and the business environment in Italy, giving students the main tools to explore and interact appropriately in a professional environment. During the second half of the semester, the course will introduce students to the
Made in Italy
excellence and the history responsible for Italian Style’s world-renowned fame and high-demand. Students will learn how the concept of
Made in Italy
originated, look at the history of Italian style and its international value. The lessons in the second half of the semester will be integrated with interviews of people in Italy and in New York City working in businesses that sell or advertise Italian products. The interviews (one per week) will provide a direct look into the areas that are being discussed in class, so that students will have the opportunity to learn firsthand what it means to work in a business in Italy or with Italy, and with Italian products.
- TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
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Instructor:
Federica Franze
CULPA: 4
Info
- 3 points
SENIOR THESIS/TUTORIAL
Prerequisites: the faculty advisers permission. Senior thesis or tutorial project consisting of independent scholarly work in an area of study of the student’s choosing, under the supervision of a member of the faculty.
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Instructor:
Teodolinda Barolini
CULPA: 7
Wikipedia
Info
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Instructor:
Elizabeth Leake
Info -
Instructor:
Nelson Moe
CULPA: 10 h-index: 6 Info -
Instructor:
Pier Mattia Tommasino
CULPA: 7
Info
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Instructor:
Konstantia Zanou
Info - 3 points
TOPICS in MICROHISTORY
TOPICS IN MICROHISTORY
In the 1970s and 1980s a group of young Italian historians transformed the methods of historical inquiry and narrative. This class explores the origins, the diffusion, as well as the debate around Italian Microhistory across Europe and the United States. In particular, we will focus on “cultural” and “social” Microhistory and its evolution in Italy, France, and the US. We will read masterpieces such as Carlo Ginzburg’s
The Cheese and the Worms
, as well as Nathalie Zemon Davis’s
The Return of Martin Guerrre.
Also, we will analyze the current application of microhistorical methods to contemporary global history and the genre of biography. Topics include pre-modern popular culture and literacy, minority and marginality, the Inquisition, individual and collective identities, and the relation between the pre-modern Mediterranean, Europe and the world.
In Italian.
- W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Pier Mattia Tommasino
CULPA: 7
Info
- 3 points
INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL HERITAGE. AN IT
INTRO TO CULTURAL HERITIT
This seminar will examine the concept of cultural heritage as a body of goods, tangible and intangible, that come to us from the past - sometimes from antiquity, sometimes from more recent historical periods - and for which we are responsible for the present and future generations. The environment is an important part of cultural heritage too, with nature and its peculiar beauties. Similarly, practices, traditions, crafts and customs are a crucial component of cultural heritage. Over time, cultural heritage has become an increasingly broad and complex category: experts, scientists and professionals involved continue to multiply, and the disciplines continue to specialize. Even the very concept of cultural heritage is quite dynamic and frequently modified and reinterpreted. Based on an anthropological perspective and within the framework of a cultural heritage considered among the most valuable in the arts, both visual and literary, Italy’s artistic, archaeological, library and archival treasures will be a regular source of analysis and discussion. This course will examine ways in which we can understand cultural heritage through the intersections of several components: identity, nationalism, colonialism, ethnicity, gender, and religion, just to mention a few. Students will take into account several elements: how regional and international agencies and policies operate and interact with each other, the many threats to cultural heritage (wars and conflicts, natural disasters, climate change, illicit trafficking, and some forms of tourism), and the role of sustainability. The course will encourage students to acquire analytical reasoning and critical thinking, through a combination of textual and visual interpretation and class discussion. There are no pre-requisites for this course.
In English
- M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Barbara Faedda
Info - 3 points
BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON
While focusing on the Decameron, this course follows the arc of Boccaccios career from the Ninfale Fiesolano, through the Decameron, and concluding with the Corbaccio, using the treatment of women as the connective thread. The Decameron is read in the light of its cultural density and contextualized in terms of its antecedents, both classical and vernacular, and of its intertexts, especially Dantes Commedia, with particular attention to Boccaccios masterful exploitation of narrative as a means for undercutting all absolute certainty. Lectures in English; text in Italian, although comparative literature students who can follow with the help of translations are welcome.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Teodolinda Barolini
CULPA: 7
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON
BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON(ENGLISH)
While focusing on the Decameron, this course follows the arc of Boccaccios career from the Ninfale Fiesolano, through the Decameron, and concluding with the Corbaccio, using the treatment of women as the connective thread. The Decameron is read in the light of its cultural density and contextualized in terms of its antecedents, both classical and vernacular, and of its intertexts, especially Dantes Commedia, with particular attention to Boccaccios masterful exploitation of narrative as a means for undercutting all absolute certainty. Lectures in English; text in Italian, although comparative literature students who can follow with the help of translations are welcome.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Teodolinda Barolini
CULPA: 7
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
NARRATIVES OF MODERNITY
In revisiting two major authors of the Italian modern novel, the course investigates the relation between fiction and the conditions of modernity (personal risk, anxiety and lack of control on reality, secularization, to name a few). Special attention will be paid to the response of the novelistic discourse to modernity, and to Italy's peculiarly peripheral position in the modern world. Primary texts will be read in Italian, while theoretical references will be in English.
- T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
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Instructor:
Elizabeth Leake
Info - 3 points
STUDIES IN DANTE
Inferno
A variable-content course that rotates through various texts of Dante's and various areas of Dante studies. The fall 2026 course will be an in-depth reading of
Inferno
.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Teodolinda Barolini
CULPA: 7
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
RSRCH-LATE MDVL & RENSSNCE LIT
RSRCH-LATE MDVL & RENSSNC LIT
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Instructor:
Teodolinda Barolini
CULPA: 7
Wikipedia
Info
- 3 points
RESEARCH-MODERN & CONTEMP LIT
Guided reading and research on a topic or in a field chosen by the student in consultation with a member of the faculty.
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Instructor:
Elizabeth Leake
Info - 3 points